In Sweden, when a child is born, the mother is connected with a local parents’ group whose children are the same age. Alongside professional guidance, the healthcare system actively encourages the formation of social ties, based on the assumption that community accelerates the processes of recovery and adjustment after birth. Behind this policy lies a renewed recognition of the value of the “communal hearth”: the power of human connection, belonging, and community. Indeed, a study examining the program found that many participants continued to maintain meaningful social relationships even after it ended.
The Swedish example is noteworthy not because communities exist, but because they have been integrated into the national healthcare system. Shelley Taylor, one of the pioneering researchers in the field of health psychology, emphasized the importance of such social ties for individual well-being.[1] Taylor argued that alongside the well-known “fight or flight” response, human beings also respond to stress by turning to others and strengthening social bonds — a pattern she called “tend and befriend.” This pattern was found to be especially common among women, who, in situations of uncertainty, tend to seek closeness, rely on support networks, and form cooperative arrangements.
The significance of this theory lies not only in the explanation it offers for how women cope with stress, but in the broader understanding that emerges from it. Social ties are not merely a tool for achieving goals. They are part of a basic human response that enables healthier coping with life’s challenges. This insight takes on special meaning in light of the reality of Haredi women today. They operate in more diverse spaces than in the past, carrying responsibility both for family and for livelihood. Beyond this, they also face a complex social and security reality. The social structures that once provided belonging, support, and resilience are changing.
Against this background, recent years have seen the emergence of initiatives that seek to respond to the communal needs of women in a changing reality. One prominent example is the “Achat” community, under the auspices of Achvat Torah, which was born out of the complex encounter between a binding world of values and the demanding realities of home and work. The very emergence of such initiatives raises a broader question: What is the place of community in the lives of Haredi women today, and what is missing from existing structures of belonging that makes the search for community so relevant?
Given the significant communal, social, and cultural changes taking place within Haredi society in recent years, this article seeks to reexamine the concept of women’s community. What does community contribute to women today? And in an age of social networks and diverse circles of belonging, does local community — based on involvement, responsibility, and shared creation — still matter?
Where Did the Village Go?
It seems that we have never been more connected. The WhatsApp groups of family, work, and neighborhood are active almost without pause. We are surrounded by diverse social circles: colleagues, professional groups, digital communities, family, and friends. And yet, the question “Which community do you belong to?” still challenges us.
To understand this paradox, we must first ask what community is. Ferdinand Tönnies, one of the pioneers of the sociology of community, distinguished between traditional community and modern society.[2] Traditional community rests on closeness, personal familiarity, a high level of solidarity, and commitment woven out of a shared reality of life. Modern society, by contrast, is based more on roles, interests, and functional relationships.
The fate of traditional community in the modern world has occupied many scholars. One of the most prominent was Robert Putnam, a Harvard sociologist. His book Bowling Alone examined the weakening of community life and civic involvement in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Putnam argued that there had been a significant erosion of what he called social capital: the networks of trust, commitment, and reciprocity between people. People had not stopped forming social ties, but they were doing so less and less within stable communities and more as individuals. Later, however, he found that the most significant centers of social capital were houses of worship. People who regularly attend synagogue or church tend to volunteer more, give more, and show greater communal responsibility. In Putnam’s view, the power of houses of worship lies not only in their religious dimension, but in their ability to create a shared space of life that fosters reciprocal relationships over time.
By contrast, Morris Janowitz, who studied neighborhood life in Chicago in the 1950s, reached a somewhat different conclusion. According to him, community had not disappeared, but had changed form. Instead of traditional communities based on place and comprehensive belonging, communities had formed around areas of interest. These communities reduce the dimension of commitment: people choose for themselves the extent of their obligation. Janowitz called this phenomenon a “community of limited liability.”[3]
In many respects, this is also the story of Haredi society. For many years, Haredi society preserved the structure of traditional community. At its center stood the synagogue, a geographic, social, and spiritual anchor. Physical proximity among family members, neighbors, and members of the community created deep familiarity, mutual commitment, and a shared sense of responsibility. In recent decades, significant changes have taken place in Haredi society, including growing participation in the workforce, exposure to diverse spheres of life, and a weakening of traditional collective structures. Yet when it comes to the reorganization of local communities, it seems that the geographic spread of Haredi communities has had the deepest impact.
Rising housing prices and demographic growth have led to the establishment of new Haredi neighborhoods and cities. Young couples have been forced to move away from their communities of origin and extended families. If in the past the natural support network was within walking distance, today it is often a long drive away.
Rising housing prices and demographic growth have led to the establishment of new Haredi neighborhoods and cities. Young couples have been forced to move away from their communities of origin and extended families. If in the past the natural support network was within walking distance, today it is often a long drive away. As a result, the community has been required to fill broader roles than before. It has been expected to meet needs that were once addressed by the natural circles of family closeness: helping single-parent families, for example, or mobilizing to prepare for a bar mitzvah Shabbos.
Despite these changes, the synagogue has remained a central geographic, social, and spiritual anchor. The very existence of frequent and fixed encounters bound up with religious life, such as prayers and shiurim, preserves a shared space of life. In this sense, the Haredi community embodies a basic feature of traditional community. It maintains a shared life-space that encourages Putnam’s social capital: familiarity, commitment, and a sense of belonging over time.
These changes have not bypassed the women’s section. For generations, women relied on the natural support networks of family. These networks provided personal resilience and helped them cope with life’s challenges. Assistance after birth, help with childrearing, accompaniment during times of crisis, and even a daily conversation with a sister were part of the fabric of life. All of this was enabled by geographic proximity and daily availability. But processes of urbanization weakened these support networks. As the “village” gradually disappeared, women were required to find new responses to needs that had once been met naturally and almost self-evidently.
At the same time, women’s growing integration into the workforce, acquisition of education, and exposure to diverse social spaces accelerated changes in self-definition, leading women to develop a more distinct and independent personal identity. As a result, the traditional mechanism of connection to community through the husband, who represented the family in the public space, lost some of its relevance. Women today seek direct access to community. They want to receive information firsthand, to take part in the conversation, and to influence the spaces that affect their lives.
Thus, two complementary processes have converged: geographic distancing, which created a need for a new response to the support networks that were lost; and a shift in self-definition, which created a demand for tailored responses and direct connection with the community.
Into this reality entered the “communities of limited liability” described by Janowitz. Haredi women today build networks of belonging around parenting, profession, study, social action, and shared interests. In fact, they have become the primary consumers of communities of limited liability within Haredi society. These communities provide them with knowledge, inspiration, identification, and a sense of belonging. They also offer an immediate space for connection, initiative, creation, and influence. The “Achat” community, which is based on a shared ideology, is one example. Following from this, it is worth asking whether “Achat,” or any other community of limited liability, can replace the traditional local community.
The Limits of Limited-Liability Communities
The story of the wives of reservists can serve as an illuminating case study for understanding the limits of communities of limited liability. After October 7, many social initiatives emerged, but as the new routine deepened, many of them faded. It was precisely then that the magic of the traditional local community became apparent. Those who noticed the ongoing difficulty were usually not friends from a professional community or a shared study group. The one who noticed was the neighbor who saw a soldier’s wife taking out the garbage, or the neighbor who bumped into her carrying a six-pack of water with a baby in a carrier.
Communities of limited liability have significant advantages. They exist beyond geographic boundaries and allow each woman to find circles of belonging that are precise for her. An educator can consult with women educators from across the country, share professional dilemmas, and receive knowledge and experience that are not limited to her place of residence. At the same time, she might belong to a Montessori parenting community, a daily Tanach study group, and a running group.
Yet, as reflected in the story of the reservists’ wives, communities of limited liability also have a built-in limitation: they are partial by nature. They can create meaningful connections, but they lack the dimension of continuous visibility. For this reason, they struggle to identify changing needs and provide precise support over time. By contrast, the power of traditional community lies precisely in that continuous visibility, created through a shared life-space and familiarity built over time.
They knew when things were financially difficult, when one of the children was struggling, when parents were aging, and when the dark circles under the eyes were not merely signs of fatigue. They did not need to be updated. They were simply there.
The mother, sister, aunt, or childhood friend did not know only one aspect of a woman’s life, but its totality. They knew when things were financially difficult, when one of the children was struggling, when parents were aging, and when the dark circles under the eyes were not merely signs of fatigue. They did not need to be updated. They were simply there.
It appears, then, that in an age of communities of limited liability, women do not necessarily need more connections. They mainly need that person who sees them over time — that natural, enveloping space in which they appear not only as professionals or volunteers, but as whole people.
This insight also helps us understand the unique contribution of a female spiritual guide within a community. As I argued in another article,[4] her unique contribution does not stem only from the knowledge or authority she brings. Her power derives first and foremost from ongoing familiarity. She shares a life-space with the women. She knows the educational institutions, the local challenges, the families, and the broader story. She is therefore able to offer a tailored response that takes real life circumstances into account.
Communities of limited liability have advantages that should not be dismissed. But the local community provides context, continuity, and presence. It enables the creation of communal resilience by developing the personal capital of the members of the community. It is the communal hearth.
The New Community Model
The communal hearth still burns within us. The need for social ties and support networks remains a central mechanism for coping with life’s challenges, especially among women. Yet while the need remains, the social reality has changed. The necessity of moving to other cities weakened the natural support circles of the Haredi woman of the past. At the same time, exposure to education, employment, and new social spaces shaped a distinct and independent identity that creates a need for direct connection with community.
The challenge, then, is to create a communal response that gives women direct connection and tailored support by strengthening their bond with the local community. To that end, I would like to propose a model of women’s community embedded within the local community and complementing the value provided by communities of limited liability. The model rests on three complementary dimensions: space, involvement, and infrastructure.
Space
The relationship between community and place has occupied many scholars. Foucault addressed shared spaces in the context of a consciousness-forming space that allows a person to move beyond her comfort zone, examine her assumptions, and develop new forms of thought and action. From this conception developed the idea of the “third space,” which represents public as well as private places that serve as points of encounter. Such a space can be the synagogue courtyard, the neighborhood garden, or the underground parking lot of an apartment building.
In the Haredi context, such a space has special significance for women. For many years, community life revolved around distinctly male centers, first and foremost the synagogue. The women’s section was indeed part of the communal space, but to a large extent it remained at its margins. If we wish to strengthen women’s place within the community, there is a need to create additional meeting points integrated into the routine of their lives. The community must meet them where life is already happening.
This might be a communal coffee corner, an activity in the community garden, or a communal kiddush on Shabbos morning. Unlike an evening program or lecture, which requires setting aside dedicated time and stepping out of routine, such meeting points are woven into the regular rhythm of life. Precisely for that reason, they allow relationships to develop gradually, through ongoing encounter rather than around a one-time event.
There, the continuous visibility discussed throughout this article is created: the ability to see and be seen, to recognize the life beyond a particular role or identity. From there grow the trust, sense of belonging, and mutual responsibility that transform a group of women into a community.
It is interesting to note that in many communities abroad, the synagogue functions as a community center, including activity rooms, event halls, and additional functions designed to support encounters for all members of the community, including women. In this context, I recently heard of an initiative to establish a children’s playroom within the synagogue complex. The idea stems from the understanding that points of encounter must be woven into life itself.
Involvement
In his article on the power of community, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks presents the building of the Mishkan as a formative event in the history of the Jewish people. According to him, the people of Israel did not coalesce only around faith or a shared experience, but around shared action. The Mishkan was the first project in which each person contributed his or her part toward a goal larger than the self. From this, Sacks concludes that the best way to turn a group of people into a community is to have them build something together.[5]
This insight helps us understand the appeal of communities of limited liability for women. These communities give women a space in which they can assume responsibility, initiate, lead, and influence. They allow their members to be partners in shaping the agenda, identifying needs, and building responses. The sense of belonging created through such involvement is especially deep because it gives each woman the opportunity to leave a tangible mark on the communal space.
Therefore, when a community offers mainly shiurim, lectures, and flower-arranging workshops, it leaves participants in a passive position. By contrast, when women are called upon to organize, assume responsibility, and act for the sake of a shared goal, they move from being consumers of community to partners in its construction. This transition changes not only their level of involvement but also their sense of belonging.
Initiatives such as a support group for postpartum women, activities for teenage girls, or an assistance network for families of reservists create that delicate fabric of social capital. They cultivate familiarity, trust, and mutual commitment — the proper foundation for communal life. The more such initiatives grow out of the needs, talents, and commitment of the women of the community, the more they will contribute both to the women themselves and to the community as a whole.
Infrastructure
For a community to endure over time, it needs infrastructure. Communal initiatives may rest on commitment, care, and goodwill, but as they develop, they also require knowledge, resources, and organizational tools. An assistance network for postpartum mothers, for instance, involves far more than isolated volunteering. It requires recruiting volunteers, coordinating between families, distributing responsibilities, managing information, and creating continuity of activity over time. In many cases, what determines the success of an initiative is not the devotion of those involved, but the ability to turn goodwill into a stable and functioning system.
Beyond this, such infrastructure creates an important symmetry within the community. It allows every woman to identify a need, raise an idea, and lead an initiative, even if she does not hold an official position or special communal status. Where centers of influence were previously concentrated in the hands of a small number of role-holders, infrastructure opens the gates of communal leadership to anyone who seeks to assume responsibility. In this sense, it expands both the circle of initiatives and the number of women who see themselves as able to influence their surroundings.
Infrastructure is therefore the link that connects the two previous dimensions. Space enables women to meet; involvement enables them to create together; and infrastructure gives that activity stability, continuity, and the capacity to scale.
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Women are not necessarily searching for yet another circle of belonging, but for a space in which they can be seen, influence, and receive support over time. A combination of shared space, active involvement, and supportive infrastructure can enable women’s community to fill the role once played by the extended family: creating belonging, mutual responsibility, and personal and communal resilience.
A society in which neighbors know one another, in which women are seen in the fullness of their lives, in which care is organized without becoming bureaucratic, and in which responsibility grows from below rather than being delegated entirely to the state, is a stronger society.
This conversation, though it emerges from within Haredi society, is not relevant only to Haredim. Israeli society as a whole suffers from the weakening of local community, from loneliness beneath the surface of digital connection, and from the difficulty of translating solidarity into daily responsibility. The Haredi attempt to renew local, living community — not as a nostalgic return to the past, but as a response adapted to contemporary life — can therefore become a blessing for the broader public as well. A society in which neighbors know one another, in which women are seen in the fullness of their lives, in which care is organized without becoming bureaucratic, and in which responsibility grows from below rather than being delegated entirely to the state, is a stronger society. In this sense, the Haredi conversation about women’s community is also an Israeli conversation about the kind of social fabric we wish to build.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks defined a strong society as one whose members take responsibility for one another. This, it seems, is also the challenge now facing the Haredi community. The question is not only how to connect women to community, but how to create a community in which women are not guests or consumers of services, but full partners in building it.
When the magic happens, the community ceases to be merely a social framework and becomes what it was in the best days of the communal hearth: a network of women who see one another, bear responsibility together, and allow each woman to be part of something larger than herself.
[1] https://taylorlab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/11/2011_Tend-and-Befriend-Theory.pdf
[2] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gemeinschaft-and-Gesellschaft?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[3] Janowitz (1952)
[4] https://iyun.org.il/sedersheni/on-the-need-for-women-rabbis-in-community/
[5] https://aish.co.il/community-religion/
